


dust of dust / apple of god's eye

by orphan_account



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, sparks shown but no interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27013471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Perhaps I've approached this from the wrong angle", Optimus said, gingerly stroking over his Seeker's sharp knuckles with his digits. "I should have thought of it before, frankly."Starscream relaxed, ever so slightly, the tremble in his shoulders waning. He still made an effort to keep his gaze down on the berth, where their servos met and tangled, wishing for himself to keep that single moment forever.-personal epilogue/continuation of vincente valtieri's Honest Work. written and posted with their permission.
Relationships: Optimus Prime/Starscream
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	dust of dust / apple of god's eye

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Honest Work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26977897) by [VicenteValtieri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VicenteValtieri/pseuds/VicenteValtieri). 



> "we're hitting fanfiction levels that shouldn't even be possible."
> 
> title taken from sun by sleeping at last.  
> not usually used to this characterization but honest work gave me the feels, so! hope i manage to do them justice still, regardless of the amount of sugar i shove in it  
> 

Recovery, though painful, didn’t take nearly as long as when he first entered the Ark. Damage to his protoform and some internal organs was severe, but his movement systems remained relatively intact, save for the structural atrophy in his joints as a result of laying in the medical berth for weeks on end. In the end, however, it was nothing that simply starting to be on his legs again wouldn’t fix. 

  
Perhaps the most devastating damage to Starscream himself was the discoloration and texture damage done to his face by the acid Megatron poured on him. The middle half of his left cheek was burned off, leaving pale silver plating underneath in the shape of a flame that served almost as immortalization of the burns.

  
Starscream looked in the handheld mirror, sitting on the side of the bed, legs dangling off. Optimus was right there beside him, a servo at his back and nervously observing his recovering mate.

  
“I guess we match now”, the Prime said in an attempt to cheer him up.

“You don’t think it’s hideous?” Starscream retorted, pinching lightly at the rough scar plating.

“Do you think I’m hideous?”

Starscream almost dropped the mirror, helm jerking up in his surprise. “No! Why would I-” Then he understood, training his gaze back down. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, Star”, he took Starscream’s chin in his servo, raising his helm up again. “When I first got my scar, I too was insecure about it, how people would change their view of me. But I want you to know there is nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty more mechs earned their scars in war and wear them proudly.”

While he grasped what Optimus meant, it did little to change how he felt, and his expression soured. “Doesn’t change it being awful, though. And you still hide yours behind a mask.”

The Prime sighed, tenderly passing an index over Starscream’s discolored patch. “We can always install a battlemask for you too.”

The Seeker’s optics squinted in deep thought, a quirk Optimus had always found adorable. “I’ll think about it. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

Optimus smiled, pressing a kiss to Starscream’s audial. “We’ll talk to Ratchet about it, then.” He then hopped off the berth, gently pulling Starscream’s servo along. “Speaking of which - you want to go back to our quarters? He said you’re all set to leave the medbay now.”

Starscream nodded, pushing himself off and struggling to find balance on the floor before Optimus caught him by the waist. “Careful.”

The jet grumbled. “Thanks. It’s gonna be a pain to start actually using my legs again.” He leaned onto Optimus for support on the way to their berthroom. 

Upon entering, the Prime picked him up, seating them both together in the middle of the berth. Starscream didn’t mind, turning in his lap to face him and relax against the comforting warmth of his mate’s broad chassis. Optimus wrapped his arms around him meekly, appearing shy and unsure in his movements. The odd gesture at once put Starscream on edge. The Prime was thinking.

“Star, I’d like us to talk.”

“What would you want to talk about?” The Seeker frowned against Optimus’ windshield, cringing inwardly.

Optimus rubbed soft circles into Starscream’s hips. “About the time you attempted to claw your optics out.”

Starscream immediately retreated, pushing himself away from the Prime’s cozy lap and putting a few feet of distance in between them. “What is there to talk about?” he said in a dead even, bitter tone, feigning apathy.

“Star, I-”, he began, stopping himself to cycle in a gust of air, “I want to help you. I know you think something is wrong with you, you’ve told me as much.”

The Seeker curled into himself further, attempting to make himself as small as possible. Why did he care? It was over and done and Starscream could only hope for the rot not to leak out again.

“It’s not something you can help with.”

“Perhaps not”, Optimus replied. “But perhaps I can offer you something else.” He crawled closer to Starscream, taking the Seeker’s servos in his.

"I now believe that, from the very start, I've approached this from the wrong angle", the Prime said, gingerly stroking his Seeker's sharp knuckles with his digits. "I should have thought of it before, frankly."

Starscream relaxed, ever so slightly, the tremble in his shoulders waning. He still made an effort to keep his gaze down on the berth, where their servos met and tangled, wishing for himself to keep that single moment forever committed to his memories.

"Starscream... would you like to see my spark?"

His helm immediately shot upright, sparkbeat racing and his processor twisted in a loop. Optimus now fully took Starscream's servos in his own, pressing them to the middle of his own chest where the almost imperceptible seam lay embedded into his armor. As if on instinct, he circled his thumbs over the sensitive metal. There was something in this - a Prime, the voice of the gods offering him his very being, that just struck him as wrong. Starscream felt a knot rising in his vocalizer. He wasn't deserving of it. He may as well never be. He shouldn't. He shouldn't. He can't.

"Yes", his vocalizer sounded, without any conscious input from his helm. If possible, his optics spread even wider, shocked by his irreverent assertiveness. 

Optimus pressed a kiss to his mate's digits. As if this was any other request. As if he were presenting Starscream with an engex cube and not his very deepest being. "Your wish is my command."

Before Starscream could retroactively bite his tongue, the panels of the Prime's windshield pulled apart, revealing thin, dark wires and delicate systems underneath. Bright light seeped into the dusk of their room, all-encompassing, though soft and welcoming. Starscream yet felt like he was standing in direct, burning sunlight. It was almost overwhelming.

The final barrier split away to reveal a brilliant blue orb encased in intricate, translucent crystal, inscribed with ancient glyphs and fractals with precise cuts that reflected the light in pinks and greens and purples, all set in between the precious golden folds and protections of the Matrix, the very making of Primus. Starscream had never seen anything so beautiful. 

"You can touch it. It won't hurt me", Optimus said, and the Seeker was at a loss at the amount of trust shown. He opened his intake, unable to find the words. Instead, he just squeezed Optimus' servos encompassing his own in a loose, gentle grip, and his own digits - thin, sharp, pointed - came to caress the crystal structure around his mate's spark, remembering that almost an eternity ago, this would have been the finality of his mission. To extend his claws against that trusting, naive fool that dared to love him, to shatter open the fragile core that kept him alive. Yet now, Megatron was dead at last, and Starscream was free. Whether this was irony or poetry, Starscream couldn't tell. 

Instead of a sense of compulsion or certainty, all he thought of was how sacrilegious must it be of someone as pathetic as him to hold the heart of hearts between his two palms. He oh-so-carefully traced the patterns etched into the crystal, the light of the spark reflecting off of his shiny coat in a myriad of colors, galaxies and skies made anew and held captive within his very plating.

Optimus gave a soft moan and leaned closer to Starscream, resting his scarred lips upon the Seeker's cresting vents, still enabling him access to his spark.

Starscream allowed himself to smile. 

"It's... indescribable, Optimus. It's beautiful."

The hearty chuckle from above rocked Starscream right to his core. "I'm glad you like it. Do you realize now what I have seen myself in your own spark that day?" 

All of a sudden, Starscream jerked away, retreating his servos closer to his body, a grim expression showing on his face. Optimus must have - he must have been wrong. There was no way he hadn't seen all that rust, tar, corrosion, and scarring that he knew lay present preying in his spark chamber, eating away at him every day, waiting to seep out and show just how filthy and rotten Starscream was. There was no way he could compare to anything like Optimus. 

The Prime sighed. “Star...”, he paused, closing his spark chamber and returning the room to its dim state. The Seeker became tense and rigid once again, moving his optics away. Why was Optimus so stubborn? Was he looking for an excuse to leave him behind? Was all this sappy faux-concern just a veil for him to humiliate Starscream before he threw him away?

In his spiral of anxiety he failed to register Optimus coming closer to him, servos lifting to rest at Starscream’s sides, light and idly petting there. “Calm down, Star, please.”

The Seeker dared to look up, realizing his optics had filled with energon-tears, and meeting Optimus’ blue ones, so clear and full of care, dispelling the Seeker’s worry. With effort, he took in a deep vent.

“You...you shouldn’t have done that. I can’t possibly be likened to someone like you.”

The Prime’s hold on his waist tightened. “Even if you couldn’t, even if all your self-doubt and fears were right and you couldn’t, why would it matter? I chose you. I choose you again every morning that I wake up and see you recharging in my arms. Why would tomorrow be any different, and why would right now?" He took a short pause to vent when Starscream didn't reply, his usually calm, even voice trembling for a second. "But believe me when I say they're not true. You're brilliant, Star, and it kills me inside that you can't see it. I've nearly lost you twice already, and each time I sat next to your berth whenever I could, fretting over if you will be there the next day to wake up. During all of that, I have never doubted the fact that I would be there for you, always, and I would do it all over again if it meant keeping you by my side. I love you."

Starscream’s vocalizer was tied once again, his vents hitching. He had no answer. Optimus pulled him closer in and held there, stroking his back and wings in slow, gentle motions.

“I’ve realized that your recent relapse was in part my fault. I brought those anxieties back to the surface with my request for your spark, didn’t I? But I saw you, that day, and for the short time that I did, there was nothing in there. Just you.”

The Seeker wished to deny it, half-horrified that Optimus would ever be at blame for something that was ultimately his own wrongdoing. The Prime could never do anything to harm him, Starscream had as much faith in that. 

Optimus released him from the embrace, choosing to press their forehelms together instead. “However, I do think it would do you good to know the truth, while you’re healthy and awake. Though if you say no, I promise I won’t ask you again.”

Starscream nodded slightly, anticipating the question he long knew.

“May I see your spark, Star?”

A long moment passed in silence, Starscream’s systems working in such dulled cycles they were almost on the verge of shutting down. The Seeker searched for Optimus’ servos in the dark and held them for support. His helm was blank, void of reason and dread at once. He tried to just think of them, and think of now, ignoring the shadows that crept at the edges of his processor. Finally, then, he made a decision.

“Yes”, he breathed, a nervous tremble in his voice. “But don’t make me look. Don’t make me look until you know.”

The Prime kissed him, softly. “Alright. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Starscream closed his optics shut and looked for the internal command to open up his cockpit. At last, he managed to execute it, and the yellow glass slid back hesitantly, slowly, along with the structure beneath, to reveal the dark vessel where his spark lay. He paused then, terrified of what’s to come, terrified of the uncertainty of it.

“It’s alright”, Optimus whispered, massaging his servos, “You have nothing to fear, Star. I’m right here.”

 _But you may not want to be soon_ , Starscream thought but didn’t say. At last, like ripping off a weld patch, the final barrier was lifted and even from behind his optic-lids he could feel the light pooling into the darkness of the room.

Optimus then spoke, a tone of piety and reverence in his deep voice. “Do you know what I see?”

The Seeker jolted his helm aside, still refusing to look.

“It’s a beautiful, shining, golden spark burning with the mightiness of a star in your chest, The casing isn’t crystal, but obsidian, perfectly polished volcanic glass, and it mirrors the light in such a way that it appears living and ablaze. The sides are concentric layers of metal the same shade as your wonderful, lovely face, and they pulse and breathe with every beat.”

Starscream’s cycling caught in his vents, and he clenched Optimus’ servos more firmly, to the point it must have hurt. Optimus squeezed right back in reassurance.

“There is no rot, love, nothing that I’d ever see as faulty or lacking.”

The servos upon his suddenly disappeared, but before Starscream could protest, he felt the blunt tip of a digit caressing his spark. He in-vented sharply, a part of him still expecting for it to press deeper and harder against the frail surface until it cracked, as he would have once done. But instead, it gave gentle strokes around his spark, evoking strange yet comforting emotions within him, and Starscream this time held onto the convoy’s forearms for purchase.

“Do you want to online your optics now, Star?”

Presumingly, now, he had no reason to say no, right?

It took a second, but steadily, Starscream peeked, seeing Optimus bathed in yellow, pure, uncorrupted light of a spark that was his and no one else’s. He saw how it shimmered and danced across his plating and in the glass of his windshield he could see the half-transparent reflection of his spark chamber. It was clean. Cleaner than it had any right to be.

Starscream raised his servo where Optimus’ was set next to his spark. He could touch it. It was real. He felt a choking sensation in his throat and fell forward, leaning onto his mate.

“I’m not rotten”, he pressed out, more as to convince himself than anything else, before the forthcoming sobs locked his words in.

“You never were, Star”, Optimus affirmed, having moved his servo away from Starscream’s spark to hold him again.

They sat like that for a long time, the Prime patiently petting his Seeker’s back, and Starscream taking it all in, permitting himself to, for once, feel at rest and secure. After several breems had passed, Starscream rose up, spark still at display, and took Optimus in for a deep, loving kiss. Even the Convoy himself now felt energon ebbing at his optics. He pulled Starscream closer to rest at his lap, and when they finally broke off, Starscream separated for a short moment only to return to hug Optimus in earnest, wrapping himself tightly around the Prime’s neck. Optimus couldn’t help but smile.

“I love you”, the Seeker spoke, tone still threaded with the strain of his disobedient, tense vocalizer.

“I love you too”, came the soft reply, Optimus allowing himself to cling to Starscream just a little tighter. He didn’t miss the Seeker’s short and faint but genuine, unburdened laugh on his shoulder that made his spark skip a beat in sheer awe.

Things were going to get better. And soon, too.


End file.
